


same song different tune

by alittleduck



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: F/F, Happy Ending, M/M, references to historical gay figures and places, slight magical realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:42:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27288106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittleduck/pseuds/alittleduck
Summary: One year before his daughter graduates high school, BJ Hunnicutt gets a divorce.One year after her parents get divorced, when she is seventeen-almost-eighteen, twelve hours shy of her high school graduation, Erin Hunnicutt runs away from home, to New York via Crabapple Cove.Nearly half a century ago, when Hawkeye was born, the doctor's told his mother he wouldn't make it. He did. Her miracle baby, his mother would call him and it would scare Hawkeye to the bone. It is hard to be conscious and alive.
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, past B.J. Hunnicutt/Peggy
Comments: 12
Kudos: 62





	same song different tune

**Author's Note:**

> the way that i just love erin hunnicutt a character that simply lives rent free in my head ???

When she was seventeen, Erin ran away from home. It was twelve days before her high school graduation and three months before her eighteenth birthday. Dad had dropped her off at school -- he wasn’t living at home anymore, again, but he didn’t seem as sad as he usually did. His fingers were tight on the wheel and he asked her about her day and told her that he was going to miss her at college. Erin was going to Berkeley. Her mom wanted her to stay close. Erin wanted to go all the way across the country and never turn back. Erin was going to Berkeley. 

Erin’s lived in Mill Valley her entire life. Her dad owned a car and worked in San Francisco. Her mom owned a car and worked in Mill Valley. Her dad had a special friend that came over for dinner sometimes. That was what her mom called him, which always made BJ sigh. “Peg,” he said, “it’s not like that.” Or: “He’s a good doctor, Peg.” Last week: “He’s got a kid now, you know?” That had been the first step in the Peggy-BJ kick out break up tango. 

Erin wasn’t supposed to know this, but BJ’s special friend was a homosexual who lives -- lived -- with another man in a small apartment in San Francisco. He owns -- owned -- a bar. Dad always said they met at the bar and then he’d say, “you remind me of a guy from the war.”

His friend liked to say, “honey, I  _ was  _ the war,” but he served in World War II, not Korea. So it was different. Erin didn’t really understand that part but it was important to her dad. Erin had snuck down to the bar once, the night after Mom kicked Dad out for the first time. She was eleven. She’d taken the bus to school and then the BART line after that to somewhere in the middle of San Francisco. The Castro. Dad worked down here then. Peggy made him put in a transfer for the Mission when he moved back in though. 

She got to the Castro after dark, which should’ve made her scared but just made her warm. With the fog settling down on the cold summer night, she crept down the streets, the name of a bar she remembered her mom screaming scrawled across her hand. 

When she actually found it, she was shocked. Shocked she found it and shocked to find it full up of people in dresses, wearing a tag claiming to be men. Someone spotted her but Erin grew up safe and confident and didn’t scream or make a single noise. “I’m looking for Mr Sarria,” she said, and the man who had her laughed. 

“Jimmy,” he said, pointing at himself. “Take a seat. I’ll bring him out.” Still chuckling, he left. Erin stayed perfectly still, looking all around the room, uncomprehending. 

Eventually, a tall, hairy woman came out to greet her. “Little lady,” he said. “Don’t you know this kind of place isn’t safe late at night?” 

“Mr Sarria?” 

“Ms Hunnicutt?” 

Erin smiled. “That’s my mom,” she said. “I’m misses Hunnicutt.”

“Miss,” Sarria corrected. “It is only proper for a woman of your considerable standing to identify herself as such.” He waited for a moment, then broke, and Erin laughed with him. 

“Is there where you work?” Erin said. “Dad always said it wasn’t appropriate to take me here but I don’t understand.”

“Who is this?” Jimmy asked, under his breath. 

“A daughter of a friend. Benjamin, you know. Pierce.”

“No,” Erin said, proudly. “My dad’s name is BJ Hunnicutt.”

Sarria let out an awkward sort of laugh. “Ah, ha,” he said. “You shouldn’t say that here.” Erin scrunched up her face. “It’s like he’s a superhero,” Sarria explained. “He likes to keep his identity secret so that he can save the world.”

“He saves the world?” 

“There aren’t many doctors that will look us over,” Sarria explained, “and that means the world to us. He goes by Benjamin Pierce here.”

“Is it because you’re homosexuals?” Erin asked. She didn’t know what that meant and her mom had refused to explain. She’d been too scared to ask her dad because of how pale her mom went and the look they’d exchanged. She’d heard it at school, when Mr Rasbin was fired. Mr Rasbin was Erin’s fourth grade teacher and he always let them go to recess two minutes early and sometimes he brought them cookies from home or gave them little hats he knitted himself. The kids at school said he was fired for being a homosexual. 

Sarria laughed at that. “Well, that’s part of it,” he said. “But I think the rest of the pieces should be your mom’s or dad’s to answer.”

“They won’t tell me,” Erin complained. 

“Then I won’t either,” Sarria told her. “Look, you’re mom and dad are both good people. They put up with me enough, don’t they?” 

“Is my dad a homosexual? Is that why he helps you guys?” Erin asked, instead of responding. 

“Christ,” Jimmy said. Sarria let loose another booming laugh, until Jimmy elbowed him. 

“No,” Sarria said, “just a friend of Dorothy.” Jimmy elbowed him again, which made Sarria turn and grab his butt in response. 

“Not here,” Jimmy hissed and Sarria went the kind of cold-still that Erin recognized from when her dad was really mad. 

“Then where?” Sarria asked. “Look around you -- seriously, Jimmy, look! If not here, then where?” 

“Just not in front of the kid,” Jimmy muttered, looking abashed. 

“I’m not a kid!” Erin protested and that made both of them laugh. Erin felt her cheeks heating up and hoped she wasn’t blushing even though sometimes she would pinch her cheeks to make herself look older. 

Sarria and Jimmy only let her stay for another five minutes after that before a tall, sharply dressed man walked in and gave Sarria the nod. 

“Get her out of here,” Sarria told Jimmy, before turning back to the bar crowd and issuing orders. 

Jimmy grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the bar, despite her protests. He wouldn’t answer any of her questions, either, just stood on the corner of the darkened street, hidden in the darkness from the clinical, blinking old street light, chewing the inside of his cheek. Eventually, he walked over to a phone box and after an indeterminate amount of time, requested her address in a low voice. 

Erin’s mother came to get her. “Don’t mention this to your daddy.” 

Erin couldn’t see her mother’s face. “Am I in trouble?” 

“Let’s just get home.” 

Erin slumped into the backseat of the car and tried to relax. Her mom never brought it up again and Erin never tried to broach the subject with her dad. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


By the time she got to Maine, two days later, she almost fell over getting off the bus. She’d been asleep, but the rough stop had jolted her awake. 

“Pardon me,” she asked, and the bus driver raised a single eyebrow. “Do you know where Crabapple Cove is?” 

He snorted. “What kind of stupid, made-up fantasy name is that?” 

“Um,” she said. “My uncle lives there. My mom is sick, so she sent me to stay with him for the week. Only I’ve never been.”

“Sick? And she sent you away?” 

“She’s in the hospital,” Erin explained, and then with a brief plea to God, borrowed just a little backstory from her the book stuffed deep into her knapsack. “She’s been in hospital for a while now but we’ve lost the home and they won’t let me stay over.”

“So she sent you several hours out of the way to stay with a man you never met?” 

“She didn’t have much of a choice,” Erin said. 

“Kid,” the driver said, “I know a runaway when I see one. Matter of fact, the best thing I could do for you is drive you back to New York City and give you enough quarters for a phone call.”

“I’d just call my uncle,” she told him. “And ask him to come get me. Only he hasn’t got a car, and I haven’t got the fare for another bus up here.” That was another lie. Erin had been saving her allowance just about since she’d been old enough to get one and every crummy cent of it was packed into one of her braziers. 

“You look like a good kid,” the driver said. “You smell a lot better than some of my regulars.”

“The hospital showers,” she said. “Real good about the disinfectants.”

“You’re still sticking with this, huh?”

“Nothing to stick to, sir. Just telling the truth.” Don’t say more than you need to, she remembered her Dad saying. It’s implications, it’s dancing, it’s what they think they know. You gotta use what they think they know, what picture they think they have of you. Well, Erin thought, it was much too late for that. She was always more of a talker, anyway. 

“Alright,” he relented. “But if you insist on doing this bit, try coming up with a better lie than Crabapple Cove.”

Erin’s shoulders slumped. “It really is real,” she told him. “And I really need to get there.” She looked down. She bit her lip. Let them fill in the blanks. “It’s not my uncle,” she admitted. “It’s -- well. I’ve got to see him.”

“Ah,” the driver said. “Not a runaway, you say?”

“It’s not running away when you’re running toward something,” she said. 

“It’s love then?” 

She didn’t answer. She could hear Dad in her head, counseling stillness. She waited. 

“I’ll ask around,” he said. “But I think your lover boy has been pulling your leg.” 

He returned, less than fifteen minutes later, with a look of shock on his face. “It’s real,” he said. “I would’ve sworn up and down on my mother’s grave that you were lying, but it’s real.”

Erin smiled. It was her mother’s smile, when she was trying to thank the mailman for bringing the mail inside to her to sort, for losing certain letters for a week or two sometimes. Erin wasn’t supposed to know about that but she knew her mom didn’t do it often or for too long. But sometimes she’d wait a few days before giving dad his mail. It was a smile that knew it was doing wrong and was thanking you for going along with it. It was the first thing about Mom that Dad had fallen in love with. 

It was the smile she had when she brought a stack of papers with the letters, almost exactly one year ago, and dad said that the letters were sent months ago and mom responded that she was sorry and that she hated herself and that this wasn’t who’d she ever wanted to be and Jesus but who was she becoming? Who were they making each other? 

“It’s not fair,” she said, “I thought I found a partner -- a man -- who respected me --” 

“I do, Peg, I do,” her dad had interrupted in a twisted parody of their wedding vows. 

“Just not enough to tell me the truth!” 

“Peg, you’re my best friend --”

“Lie! You’re lying to me again BJ Hunnicutt, and don’t deny that you are!” Her mother did not yell often and it had scared Erin then, even though Erin was sixteen and shouldn’t be scared of a little bit of yelling. “Stop trying to make me feel good and be honest. Please.” 

“Peg,” her dad had repeated and his voice then haunts Erin at night sometimes. She never wants to hear anyone sound like that again. 

“No. BJ. We’ll both be happier if you let yourself be happy. You gotta try to make yourself happy. Instead of trying to make yourself normal and everyone else happy. BJ, you think I don’t see what you’re doing? You think I don’t know what it means? That you wouldn’t -- touch me, for months after the war, for years?” 

“Peg, you don’t understand what Korea was like --”

“I do understand that you fell in love with someone and it wasn’t me.” Her mom’s voice had been a harsh whisper. Her dad had made a noise as if to stop her but her mom had always spoken her mind when she decided to and her mom never backed down once she was standing up. “And he loved you back.” 

No one spoke for a while after that. Erin had hated her mother then. For saying it, not for knowing it. Because now it couldn’t be unsaid or forgotten or wiped away. When the silence was finally broken, it was her mom again. “I want a divorce.” 

Another pause. 

“Ok.”

So Erin knew what it meant to smile when something was wrong. She knew that sometimes a smile wasn’t a smile but a thank you for playing along. She smiled like this at the bus driver, even if she didn’t think he would get it. She hated that smile, but she wore it well. 

“About a twenty minute walk that way, too,” clearly choosing to help her, the driver, here and now, in Maine, pointed down the road. The memories of the last year were whisked back down inside Erin. “Hell -- want a lift?” 

Erin smiled wider. “I like walking,” she said. 

“Didn’t tell him you were coming?” the driver asked. 

“It’s better if it’s a surprise,” Erin told him, and then grinned. Her mouth hurt. 

The driver shook his head and left her, muttering about kids and youth. Erin looked down the road and then took off walking the direction the driver had pointed. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


She got to Hawkeye’s house a little later than she’d expected, but the sun was still breaking against the sky and the moon hadn’t arrived yet, so she figured she was okay. And anyway, the trading off of night day, the transition between two opposing states seemed the perfect time for her mission. Very poetically appropriate. 

She knocked on the door and waited. An very old man with no hair and liver spots answered the door. Then he grinned, big and wide and clownish and she saw the resemblance. 

“Hi,” she said. 

“It’s not every day I get a young lady darkening my doorstep. Especially not one as handsome as you.”

“You mean beautiful,” Erin corrected, laughing. “And -- excuse me, but are you Mr Pierce?” 

“I prefer Doctor Pierce, these days.”

“Right. Doctor Pierce. Hawkeye’s dad?” 

Daniel Pierce’s smile dropped and he removed his glasses to rub them. He put them back on. “Good Lord,” he said, “has my son been having children and not telling me?” 

“I’m Erin,” she said. “BJ’s kid.”

“BJ?” Daniel asked. “Is BJ here? He’s going to be sad to know he just missed Ben.”

“Ben?” 

“Hawkeye,” Daniel said. “I’ve got parental rights to regretting that nickname his mother gave him. But there’s nicknames for you. They have a way of grabbing on and not letting go -- especially the ones you hate the most.”

“I’ve honestly never heard Dad call him anything else.”

“I’ve honestly never heard my son call your dad BJ.”

Erin looked at him. “What does he call him?” 

“Beej,” Daniel said. “Too lazy for two syllables, that’s my Ben.”

“Look,” Erin said. 

“Erin,” Daniel interrupted her. “Not that it’s not a delight to have you here, but I’ve got to tell you that Ben -- Hawkeye -- doesn’t live here anymore.”

Erin stopped. “What?” 

“He never really lived here long. He was just up visiting last weekend, but he’s back at work now.”

“But dad always -- even Hawkeye always talked about Crabapple Cove. I think Crabapple Cove might’ve been my second or third word, from all the times Dad put it in his letters to us from Korea.”

Daniel looked surprised. “I didn’t realize,” he said. 

“Dad always said it was Hawkeye’s home. His favorite place in the world.” He’d also said it was the only place Hawkeye would ever live, but he would say that bitterly, when drinking or when he and Peggy were fighting and she was just in earshot. Her mom would just smile and suggest that maybe, it was time for bed and then her dad’s face would drop and something Erin didn’t like would fill his face and he would stop drinking completely for a few weeks. 

“Young lady --”

“Erin.”

“Erin,” Daniel nodded. “Do you want to come in for a cup of tea?” 

“Actually,” Erin said, “if I turn back now I can probably -- where did you say Hawkeye lived now?” 

“I didn’t,” Daniel said. “But why don’t you come in? I’ll make the tea and you can get on the horn and give him a ring. It isn’t that late and it’s only Tuesday, so he’s probably not out.”

“Oh,” Erin said, “Thank you, sir. I kind of wanted my visit to be a surprise, so I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t call him.”

Daniel looked at her sardonically. Erin smiled innocently. Eventually, he grunted. “Well,” he said, “Hawkeye would’ve been proud of that little display. And it wouldn’t hurt to see him get a taste of his own medicine.” He leaned in conspiratorially. “Things aren’t better if they’re a surprise, but they are a bit more fun.”

“Thank you.” Erin smiled for real this time, showing off her overbite and chipped bottom tooth. “Where’s he live?” 

“Not so fast,” Daniel told her. “Now, I’m getting the sense that you don’t want any tea and that’s fine, but I’d like you to come inside and spend the night. And then, in the morning, I’ll give you his new address. Hell, I’ll drive you down myself.”

Erin hesitated on the threshold, Doctor Pierce’s arm trembling slightly in the air, door to a small and mossy cottage wide open. She stepped over the Main Welcome to Maine welcome mat. 

“What’s that supposed to be?” 

Daniel looked down at the welcome mat, and then back at Erin. “What, you’re a Hunnicutt and you don’t recognize a bad pun when you see one?” 

Erin didn’t know what to say so she just shook her head. 

“That damn fool of mine brought it back one day so proud I didn’t have the heart to get rid of it. I’ve never quite understood it myself but every time your father visits he has a good hard laugh just standing out here and looking it.”

“People tell me I look more like my mother,” Erin offered in response. 

“Nah,” Daniel said. “You don’t look much like either.” He waggled a finger splotchy with blue veins at her. “You act a damn sight like both of them, though. That little joke was right out of the first page of the Hunnicutt playlist. Never met two bigger trouble makers under such still covers.”

Erin stepped neatly over the welcome mat and into Hawkeye’s childhood home. 

The inside of Hawkeye’s house hadn’t changed much from what Erin could remember from when she was a kid. There were a smattering of chairs and couches, haphazardly zigging across the floor, covered with clashing, bright blankets and pillows. An unbalanced wooden table marked out a center. Erin took a seat on the chair closest to the door. 

“Actually,” she said. “I will have that tea.”

“Now you tell me,” the old man said, but he went to get it. He brought her back a kettle and a bottle of scotch. She assumed that was for him when, without pausing his steps or speed, he unscrewed the cap and took a good long drink. He set the bottle on the counter. 

“It feels like one of those nights,” he told her. “Relax.”

Erin slumped down. 

“What are you doing all the way out here?” 

“Actually,” she started. “I’m really tired --”

“What do you want with my son?” 

Erin shrugged. “I wanted to see him.”

“You’ve seen him before.”

“Not in nearly two and a half years!” Erin protested. “I don’t even know if I remember what he looks like!” 

Daniel let out a deep, belly aching laugh at that and she could see the family resemblance even more. “Oh boy,” he said. “That’s a good one. If you’re not going to be honest with me,” he asked, “is it alright if I’m not honest with you about Ben’s address?” 

“Mr Pierce --”

“Doctor. Or Daniel. Please.”

“Doctor Mr Daniel Pierce, I think that would be real mean. And I don’t think Hawkeye would like it much.”

“You don’t?” Daniel asked. “I suppose I don’t either.” 

“I know,” Erin said, “I know he wouldn’t,” and Daniel looked shocked by the unrusted iron behind her words this time. Again. Dumbfounded might even have been a word her english teacher would’ve liked her to use. Erin liked it, that she was able to shock people so easy. 

He turned back to the open bottle scotch and took another sip. “Tell me,” he said, still looking at the scotch. “Why do you want to see my son?” his fingers trembled a bit. 

“I think he might be able to help me,” Erin admitted, fiddling with the tea mug Daniel handed her. “It’s a little bit that.”

“Only a little?” 

“Mostly, I just miss him.” 

Daniel took another drink. “I miss him too,” he said. “I’ve been missing him for years.”

“You should visit,” Erin said. “I mean, I’m sure he’s not living too far away --”

But Daniel was waving his hands and shaking his head before she could finish. “No,” he said. “I miss the way Ben was before Korea. I’ll never get that back.”

“It’s been nearly fifteen years,” Erin said. 

“Time doesn’t pass in Crabapple Cove,” Daniel said. “Today was tomorrow will be yesterday then.”

Erin laughed. “Sure,” she said. 

“Just look around,” Daniel said. He spread his arms wide. “Everything’s frozen in amber out here. Frozen in the dark sweet amber we pump out of the trees, thicker than anything. Once you leave, though, time starts. And it revs up around you, trying to make up for its losses. And if you’re gone far enough, long enough, you can’t stop moving long enough to re-enter the stillness of this place.”

“Is that --” 

Daniel took another drink. Erin didn’t finish her question. 

“My parents are getting divorced, I think, for real,” Erin said, after a long pause. “I thought Hawk should know.” It’s not a nickname Erin has used before and it didn’t feel like it fit properly in her mouth. Erin wished she could take it back. 

“Ah,” Daniel said, after an even longer pause. “In that case, here.” He plucked a page out of a nearby notebook and wrote in short, clear, block letters an address. 

Erin looked down. “New York City?” She asked. “You gotta be fucking kidding me.” 

“What?” Daniel asked. 

“I just came from there!” 

Daniel’s laughter was a short and braying thing -- a donkey in a crowded market stall, trying to make itself known above the din. 

“It’s not funny!” Erin protested. “It took more than half a day to get here from New York! It cost six dollars! I barely had that when I began!” 

Daniel was too busy laughing to answer. Erin crossed her shoulders and tried not to join in. 

“Up and back again,” Daniel said. “Another half a day gone.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying this,” Erin told him. 

“At my age,” Daniel sent back, “you learn to enjoy the little things. Now, off to bed. You’ve got half a day's travel in the morning and I want you rested enough to convince Ben to -- well. Talk to him at the very least.”

“All right,” Erin said. “But I’m doing it under duress.” 

“Oh, I think that’s the only way to do it.”

“Do what?” 

“Sleep,” Daniel said. “Undressing is really the only way to do it.”

“I’m sorry I ever wondered where Hawkeye got it from,” Erin said. “Should’ve been obvious.”

Daniel grinned at her. “Maybe I got it from him,” he said. 

“Exposure over time can be toxic,” Erin agreed. She drew her arms a little tighter around herself, adjusting against the couch. 

Daniel, noting her unease, got up. “Well,” he said. “I’m off for bed. The earliest bus doesn’t leave until five in the morning, so you might as well head on up when you’re ready.” 

“Thanks,” Erin said and waited for Daniel to leave, cursing silently. Five in the morning? 

She’d been to Crabapple Cove a bunch before, she was pretty sure. She was young and she remembered tapping the trees for syrup and eating it on pancakes. She remembered going sledding with “Uncle Hawkeye”. For the first ten years of her life, Erin and her dad had gone up to Maine to visit Hawkeye while her mom stayed home to attend the annual association of realtors in Los Angeles. 

“Mr Pierce?” Erin called out as he was leaving. “I have a question, actually. I don’t really remember you from when I used to come over here.” 

“Oh,” Daniel said, and smiled. “That’s not a very happy story.” 

Erin’s brow furrowed. 

Daniel rested an arm on the door. “My wife died in early December. Ben’s mother. I like to spend the week alone. She has a cousin that made it over here. Ruth. I usually stay with her for the week. It’s nice to have someone who remembers Shprintze like I do.” 

“But --” 

Daniel smiled sadly. “I always appreciated how kind it was of your father to come out here at that time every year for Ben. It’s hard for us to be around each other. It shouldn’t be, but we -- anyway. It was a very kind gesture on your father’s part. I don’t know if I ever thanked him. But. Please. For me. Let him know how much I appreciated it.”

Erin didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t realized. She hadn’t thought. Was there even a realtor’s conference? She wondered. They’d stopped coming after she turned ten. That was when the fighting got really bad between mom and dad. Dad kept coming, Erin knew, but she didn’t go along anymore.  _ I need you with me _ , Mom had told her.  _ I need someone on my side _ . 

Erin hadn’t understood. Erin still didn’t understand. The mood passed then, but it would come on Mom every now and then -- a feeling of creeping paranoia, a misery, a black cloud. Even Dad didn’t know what to do, and Dad could always get Mom to smile. It scared Erin when Mom would get like this. Dad tried to take her to a psychiatrist once, but Mom had said the same thing.  _ I need someone on my side.  _ And Dad had bent his head.  _ Come on Peg,  _ he’d said.  _ Don’t you know I’m always on your side? _

_ Don’t make me one of your patients, BJ Hunnicutt, don’t you do that to me!  _ Mom had been so mad and so scared. Dad hadn’t responded to that.  _ Don’t you make me out to need saving,  _ Mom had said,  _ I’m just fine on my own!  _ And Dad hadn’t liked that at all --  _ fine on your own?  _ He’d said.  _ Maybe I’m not and I hoped you weren’t either!  _ And then it had gotten quiet and then Mom had started to cry. 

Erin had fled then, scared of watching her parents move like aliens, scared of the dark and shifting thing that lived in their house under the floorboards and crept into her parents room at night, just before the screaming started. Erin tried cleaning and fixing and painting -- she’d even tore up the floor once, to replace the wood. Ripped away what was rotting, smashed away what was rusted, forced off what was imperfect and dark and bruised. Maybe the darkness, the shadows, the spirits would leave if the wood was new. 

Dad had been delighted and even Mom had joined in, laughing and taking photos.  _ Look, you’ve got your son after all _ , Mom had said.  _ Don’t need one, _ Dad had replied,  _ with Erin around.  _ Dad was quick with words and clever. Erin thought that was unfair, because Dad was a doctor which meant he was quick and clever with his fingers and with his mind and it wasn’t fair that he got to be with his words as well. Erin wasn’t as quick and clever as her dad, even though she thought she wanted to be a writer. Her dad probably could’ve been one. He told the best stories, ones with beautiful princesses and evil dragons and soaring high, high, high above the tiny spec of earth they lived on, full of magic and adventure and the defeat of evil and triumph of good. 

She’d thought that she could triumph over evil, defeat it for good. So she’d ripped up the floor and replaced the wood and her dad had laughed and laughed and told her about building a concrete floor in the OR in Korea. And then later that night she heard screams from her parents' rooms and soft voices and she knew that whatever it was haunted them and held them and hugged their ankles to the ground, it was seeped into the foundation, into the earth. She would never be able to remove it. 

“Good night, kiddo,” Daniel said and left her to the stillness of Crabapple Cove. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


“Coming, I’m coming, Christ, Michael, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand --” Hawkeye came to a full stop at the sight of her but recovered immediately. “Well,” he said, lined face breaking out into a deep smile. “Erin Hunnicutt! As I live and breathe! What are you doing all the way out here? And,” he looked around eagerly, “where’s your dad?” 

“Hi,” Erin said, then neatly stepped over the threshold. “My dad’s not here.” 

“Your mom?” Hawkeye tried next. 

“Also no,” Erin said, looking around his sitting room. There was a large beat-up looking beige couch and a small kickstand crammed into one corner. Three of the walls were a deep blue but the ceiling was a faint set of gold tipped blue spirals getting closer and tighter but never touching the edges of the wall. The rest of the space was covered with books and papers and a small ashtray next to the landline. “Aren’t you going to offer me some tea?” she asked, making a full revolution. “It’s what your dad did.”

“My dad?” Hawkeye floundered. “You went to see my dad?” 

“He told me where you lived.”

“Ah,” Hawkeye said. “Now that makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is why he didn’t give me a ring.” 

“I asked him not to,” Erin said blandly and moved into the first room off the living room. It was a bedroom. 

“Ah,” Hawkeye said, trying to encourage her to leave. “That’s my roommate’s.” 

“Are they an artist?” Erin asked, not moving. 

“Something like that,” Hawkeye said. 

“They don’t look very good,” Erin said. It was true. The walls were splattered with increasingly dissonant shapes and colors. Even the record case in the corner looked haphazard. 

“Well, you know artists,” Hawkeye said. “Vision is beyond what us mere mortals can comprehend.” 

“Sure,” Erin said. 

“About that tea,” Hawkeye said, desperately, tugging at her arm. Erin picked up the canvas bag in the middle of the floor and opened it. “Don’t --” 

“Oh.” Erin said. She closed the bag and put it back down. She was pretty sure she was swaying a bit. “That’s --” 

“Why don’t we go get that tea?” Hawkeye said. 

“It’s about time,” Erin agreed and walked out of the room as fast as her legs could carry her. She tried to ignore Hawkeye’s hacking laughter behind her. 

The kitchen is small and clean and tightly organized. It’s different from any other room in the house. Hawkeye gets a pot from beneath the sink and fills it with water. 

“You don’t have a kettle?” she asked. 

“In New York,” Hawkeye said, “you drink coffee.” 

Erin laughed softly and smiled at Hawkeye. He smiled back. “It’s been a few years since I’ve seen you.”

Erin remembered. He’d flown out to visit them all two years ago. Her mom hadn’t wanted him to stay in the main house and Dad refused to make Hawkeye get a hotel. They compromised by putting Dad in the guest room and Hawkeye with Mom, which Erin still didn’t understand. 

“Hawkeye?” She asked. 

“What’s up?” His mouth turned down, but the corners of his eyes still crinkled up. “Finally gonna tell me why you ran all the way out here all by yourself?” 

“Why haven’t you visited lately?” 

“I’ve just been busy,” he told her. “I got a new job in the Village. Kind of one of those public health clinics. We serve a special clientele,” he said. “It’s not well paid.” 

Erin frowned. “Oh,” she said. “Dad works in a real hospital. And mom works too. I don’t know why we didn’t visit, if you were having money problems.”

Hawkeye started into a booming laugh. “I’m not having money problems,” he told her. “And where would I put your folks? In all this space? Kiddo, trust me, we’ve just been real busy -- if I’d have known you missed me so much I would’ve flown right out. No, I’d have run over there. Just booked the first train --”

“Hawkeye!” Erin cut him off, trying not to laugh. Hawkeye laughed loudly enough for both of them. “I’m not kidding around! I used to see you all the time and now I hardly never do. Why?” 

Hawkeye grinned impishly at her. “You know, you got the subtlety of a blunt anvil to the head.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” 

“Your parents used to say you’d grow out of it. I always knew they were wrong, of course, being the genius that I am.”

“Grow out of it?” 

“Sure,” Hawkeye said, “you know, when a little kid asks an awkward question or breaks the polite veneer of social convention but they’re young and they’re cute, so no one minds?” 

“Right,” Erin said. “Sure.” 

“So, you never grew out of it,” he told her. 

“Right,” Erin agreed. “I want to know things, so I ask them. Is that not a good thing? Should I stop?” 

“God, no,” Hawkeye said. “People won’t like it, but most of them are stupid.”

“Okay,” Erin agreed again. She tilted her head to the side. “Then why does your artist friend keep torture devices in bags on the floor?” 

Hawkeye choked. “And people call me a pistol!” He said. 

“You don’t like answering questions, do you?” 

“Or notes. Or notices. I’ve never met a notice I haven’t tried to dodge. Not successfully, of course, but you can ask your father all about that one. He’ll vouch for me.” 

“What was in the bag?” Erin asked. 

“Oh, no, no, no,” Hawkeye said. “You aren’t getting me that easy. I know your tricks, Erin Hunnicutt!” 

“If you tell me what’s in the bag, I’ll tell you why I’m here,” Erin offered. 

“You were going to do that anyway,” Hawkeye said. 

Erin shrugged. “Maybe I’ve changed my mind.”

“You came all the way out to Crabapple Cove by yourself and talked my dad into letting you surprise me down here. You’re not leaving without getting what you came for.”

Erin groaned. “Can’t you just tell me?” 

“Don’t you think you oughta earn it?” 

They were both startled by a knock at the door. Hawkeye looked around, a little disoriented, then smacked his head. “Michael!” He bound over to the door to let in a rather tall, tanned fellow. Michael, Erin supposed. ‘Michael’ did not look happy. He looked wet and confused. 

“Where’s the storm, thundercloud?” Hawkeye asked, darting around his friend and dusting at his shoulder. 

“What?” Michael asked. 

“You’re wet darling,” Hawkeye said. 

“And you’re entertaining a child.” 

“Well,” Hawkeye said. “Yes.” 

“Hi,” Erin said politely. Then she added, “It’s very nice to meet you. I’m Erin. I’m really terribly sorry to ask you this, but do you think you’d mind leaving me and Hawkeye to talk? It’s just that it’s very important and I’ve been traveling a lot to get here.” 

“Hawkeye?” Michael asked, speculatively. Hawkeye grimaced. 

“Yes,” Erin answered for him. “It’s a nickname.”

“Most of us call him Ben out here,” Michael said. 

Erin wrinkled her nose. “Like your dad.” Hawkeye laughed. 

“Exactly. Like my dad. You’d think they’d call me Doctor Pierce, with all the doctoring I do around here, but --” 

“Oh, I’ll call you Doctor,” Michael said. 

Hawkeye’s pupils darted towards Erin, but he licked his lips and responded by leaning laviciously into Michael’s space. “Doctor?” He asked. “You sure you don’t want to play nurse?” 

Michael swatted at Hawkeye. “You have a guest,” he reminded him. “You really are incorrigible.” 

Hawkeye turned back to Erin. His eyes were creased. “Alright,” he said. “What’s wrong, Erin?” 

“Look, I really need to talk to you, Hawk,” Erin told the ground, pleading. She wanted to look up and see Hawkeye but she didn’t know how she’d manage to keep talking if she did that. “I’m sorry I was playing before, but it is important and I do need to say it.” Hawkeye exchanged a glance with Michael, who nodded, and then Hawkeye started to bend down, closer to her level. This prompted Erin to lift her head, twitching wildly between the two of them. “Are you guys husbands?” she asked, which made both of them start laughing. 

“I can’t believe it,” Hawkeye said. 

“Out of the mouths of babes,” Michael agreed. 

“No,” Hawkeye answered. “He’s just a special kind of friend.”

Erin rolled her eyes. “Hawkeye, I’m seventeen. I know all about special friends. My dad has one too,” and it sure was something to see Hawkeye go both red and white at the same time. Michael took one look at Hawkeye and started to laugh. 

“What?” Hawkeye said, fingers clawing into his own leg. 

“His special friend,” Erin replied. “Mom calls him his extra special friend. She likes when Dad brings him over for dinner but also I think she doesn’t like it.” Erin frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. She likes his special friend. She doesn’t like it when Dad invites him over without telling her.” 

Hawkeye opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it, then closed it. Then did it again, six or seven more times, mouth twitching as though it desperately wanted to speak. 

“Well done,” Michael said, “you’ve reduced him to a goldfish. Here, I thought it couldn’t be done! We’ll have to keep you.”

Erin felt unsettled, and confused. She thought Hawkeye would understand. She thought Hawkeye knew about Jose. “I didn’t mean to,” she told Michael. 

Michael smiled at her and then elbowed Hawkeye. “Ben,” he said and that seemed to work. Hawkeye straightened up. 

“Beej -- I’m sorry, your dad has --” but Hawkeye slouched back down into the counter, mouthing the words special friend to himself. 

“It’s just because he’s a homosexual,” Erin tried to explain and that’s when Hawkeye broke the coffee maker. He started so badly that his elbow caught against a stack of cookbooks wrapped around the electric chord, yanking the whole machine out of the wall and onto the floor. 

Erin yelped, Hawkeye froze and Michael buried his head in his hands. When he finally poked his head back out, Erin and Hawkeye staring at each other, Michael sighed. “Erin, honey,” he said. “You’d better start from the beginning.”

“I didn’t think it was a bad thing,” Erin insisted, and was surprised to find her voice coming higher and faster than she meant it to. “Mom just calls Jose Dad’s special friend because Jose’s a homosexual. I didn’t really know what that means, but he lives with a man in the Castro just like Mom lives -- lived -- with Dad and he’s really nice and even he owns a bar and I went there once and --” 

“Erin,” Hawkeye said, concerned. “Take a breath. I’m okay. I was just surprised. I thought you meant that BJ was -- your dad --” Hawkeye himself took a breath. “But you were talking about this special friend, right?” 

Erin took a breath and then another, a huge gasping one that rattled around in her chest. “I really didn’t think I’d have to tell a stranger,” Erin told Michael. “I really wanted to talk to Hawkeye. I’m sorry,” her voice was softer this time. “I know I’m being rude. I’m really sorry. It’s just that I really need to talk to him and I’ve come all the way from California and I think I might have been talking about my dad after all, only I don’t know and I thought this would help but it isn’t working out at all!” To her surprise, Erin found that she was close to tears. 

“Woah, woah, hey now,” and that was a voice she remembered from being sick, being babysat, being looked over. Hawkeye was moving off the counter, stooping to her level. “Nothing’s gone wrong. I mean, I’ve gone a bit bent, but I think Michael could tell you I’ve always been that way.” 

Erin laughed a bit. “I’m tired,” she told him. “You’re dad was going to drive me, but I couldn’t sleep at all so I stayed up all night and left at five in the morning because that’s when he said the earliest bus left.” 

“Christ,” Hawkeye said, “you must be exhausted. Surely we can talk about your father’s homosexual lover in the morning.”

“Oh,” Erin said. “They aren’t lovers.” She felt Hawkeye’s hands still, but only for a second. 

“Alright,” he said, “we can talk about your father’s homosexual friends in the morning.” 

“I’d rather talk now. I don’t think I can sleep until I talk about it.”

“Let’s go to the living room. Michael,” Hawkeye made some gesture with his hands and Michael made some gesture back and then the two of them gestured and eyebrow wagged and stamped back a forth for a bit until Michael rolled his eyes. 

“Fine, but you’ve only an hour and then I’m leaving,” Michael said. “And that’s only because happy hour isn’t until 5.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Hawkeye waved him off. 

“And I’m taking your umbrella,” Michael said, snatching a browbeaten looking thing off the stoop by the door. 

“Is he your special friend?” Erin asked. 

“I don’t think we’re both using that term the same way,” Hawkeye told her. “He’s special, he’s a friend -- he’s not a husband.”

“Okay,” Erin said as she let Hawkeye lead her over to the beaten up couch. She sank down into it. “Mom and dad are getting a divorce.”

“They are?” Hawkeye sounded strangled. His movements had taken on a strange, jerky quality to them, like he was standing over his own puppet body, trying to fool everyone into thinking he was a human being. Erin understood that, a little. 

“Well, not really.” Erin said. “Maybe,” she amended. “BJ’s living with Jose right now.”

“His special friend?” 

“Jose owns a bar in the Castro and lives with a man named Jimmy who he’s in love with,” Erin recited. “I’m not supposed to tell people because they could get in trouble. But they’re really nice.”

“Your dad mentioned having new friends but he never said anything about -- Jose,” Hawkeye said, more to himself than her. 

“Oh,” Erin said. “I thought he did.”

“Yeah, well, apparently, you thought a lot of things. No, sorry, that isn’t fair.” Hawkeye changed tactics. “Erin, what’s going on? Really? Are your parents getting divorced or aren’t they?”

“They might be,” Erin hedged. 

“Because BJ moved out?” 

“I think because he’s a homosexual,” Erin said again. 

Hawkeye looked at her gently. “Having homosexual friends doesn’t make you a homosexual,” he told her. 

“I know,” she said, annoyed. “I think being a homosexual makes you a homosexual.”

“Erin, your dad loves you and your mom very much. You’re all he talked about during the war.”

“Really?” Erin asked. 

“He kept a stack of your mother’s letters this thick,” Hawkeye gestured. “And this wide. Kept us entertained for what felt like a decade with stories about you two from back home.”

Erin smiled. She seemed to relax a bit into the chair. “He never talks about the war,” she said. “Not unless he’s drinking.”

“Yeah, well, it’s a hard thing to remember,” Hawkeye told her. “I don’t blame him for that. But it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you or your mom, very much.”

Erin tilted her head. “I think my parents are getting divorced,” she said. “That’s why I had to come all the way out here.” 

“Oh,” Hawkeye said. 

“I think my parents are getting divorced because my dad’s a homosexual,” she repeated and waited for Hawkeye to understand. 

“Right,” he said and his hands twitched. Erin didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t understand and she thought he would have but he didn’t and now she just wanted to cry. She thought everything that didn’t make sense would make sense again when she saw Hawkeye but it didn’t. She hadn’t fixed anything. She’d just run away and worried her parents and wasted her graduation money. She braced her hands gently against her pleated pants, smoothing out the crumples. 

“Hawkeye?” she asked. “Can I call my dad?” 

“Of course!” he said. He jumped up. “I’ll just -- I’ll go in another room and the phone is right here,” he pointed at their landline, “and I’ll promise to only listen in to the good bits!” 

“Hawkeye,” Erin protested laughing. “I just want to tell him I made it here.” 

“Beej knows you’re here?” Hawkeye cleared his throat. That alone made Erin want to stamp her throat because it seemed like Hawkeye did -- and if Dad did then why didn’t Hawkeye understand? 

“Of course,” Erin lied. Then she stopped. “Hawk, why don’t you understand? I’m trying to explain to you that my dad’s a homosexual but you aren’t -- why isn’t this working?” 

“Erin,” Hawkeye told her, “I know it’s scary for you with your mom and dad fighting --” 

Erin rolled her eyes and stopped listening. She understood now. Hawkeye didn’t believe her. He thought it was some cruel false start. Had this happened before? No -- Dad was steadfast and loyal and pig headed but never cruel. This was Hawkeye. 

Erin walked over to the landline and dialed her dad’s number. Once she got through the operator to her father, she was silent for a minute. 

“Hello?” 

“Hi Dad,” Erin said. 

“Erin! Oh my God -- your mother and I have been so concerned. You’re graduation is in --”

“Dad,” she said. “You’re still living with Jose, right? And mom’s parents are staying with her right? Or has she made them leave. I know she wanted them to leave. I hope they aren’t there anymore.” 

“Is that why you left?” 

“What?” She asked. “No. Of course not. I think I’m just trying to prove something to Hawkeye.”

“What?” her dad asked. “Never mind proving anything, Erin, honey, are you okay? Where are you? Do you need me to come get you?” 

“Dad,” Erin cut him off impatiently. “I’m fine, I’m with Hawkeye.”

“You’re in New York?”

“No, I’m in New York -- you knew?” she asked. 

“Knew what?” 

“That Hawkeye was in New York!” 

“Of course I did,” BJ said as Hawkeye laughed bright and loud on her end. She flapped an arm, trying to shush him. “How’d you think I was sending him all those letters?” 

“But you always talk about Crabapple Cove! And Maine!”

“That’s because Hawk always talked about Crabapple Cove,” her dad said. “And Maine. He’s got quite the sentimental attachment. And his dad lives there. He goes back often enough.”

“That’s true,” Hawkeye confirmed. 

“Shush,” she told him, covering the receiver. “You’re not even supposed to be listening.”

“I have good ears,” Hawkeye said. “In spite of what the name might have you thinking. That’s just a misdirect.”

“Honey,” her dad’s voice was tiny and wrinkled with static. “Why are you with Hawkeye? Your mothers going out of her mind -- I’m going out of my mind. We’re -- you’re graduation is in two days, Erin.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it.” 

Her dad laughed, a little hysterically. “Well, that’s one way of putting it.” 

“I’m trying to explain to Hawkeye that you moved in with Jose but he isn’t understanding --”

“You told -- Hawkeye --” 

“You know,” Hawkeye said. “I thought this would be funny.” He left the room. 

“Hawkeye --” Erin said, and then bit her lip. “I think he’s upset with me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” her dad told her fondly, “he’s upset with me.” 

Erin laughed. “Dad,” she said. “Are you okay?” 

“Why do I feel like I should be asking you that?” he responded and she shrugged into the air. 

“I’m okay, promise.”

Her dad sighed through the miles between them. “Erin, are you coming home?” 

“I think this is important, dad. I saw it, you know.”

“What?” 

“The shadow, or whatever. The thing that haunts our house. That sounds dramatic.” Erin was frustrated. She didn’t know how to explain herself. She didn’t know how to tell her dad she needed to stay here for herself and for himself. 

“Dad,” she hesitated again and then more firmly continued. “You scare me. Our house scares me. I don’t think I can escape it, sometimes.”

“Escape what, honey?” 

“I don’t know,” Erin told him. “Whatever it is that held you and mom there for so many years and forced you to stay like that. I don’t know what you call it.” 

Her dad didn’t respond for a long time. “Erin,” he said. “I’m so sorry. That I wasn’t -- that I couldn’t --”

Erin’s throat is closing up and her voice is tight. “Don’t apologize, dad, don’t. You were and you did and mom was and she did too, okay? I love you so much. But I don’t think you’re happy and I want you to be happy and I want to be happy but I can’t be happy when you and mom are so tied to misery you can’t even see -- !” Erin forced herself to breath. She finished quieter. “And I just don’t know how I can make that happen.” 

“So you went to Hawkeye?” 

“I thought he might make you happy,” Erin said. “But he didn’t and now I’ve made him sad too but I can’t go home yet. I can’t leave after I showed up and made things worse.”

“Erin, you’ve never made anything worse,” her dad said and Erin did start to cry then. “You are the best part of my life.”

“I love you too, dad,” she said. 

“You should call your mother,” he said. “Let her know you're alright. She’s been out of her mind with worry.”

Erin bit her lip. That frightened her more than calling her dad. “I think I should put you on with Hawkeye now.”

Her dad took a breath. “Alright,” he said. “But after that, you call your mom.”

Erin put the phone down gently in its holder. Wait, she thought at her dad. I’m getting him. 

She left the phone on the cradle and went into the apartment. “Hawkeye?” she called as she went. 

She didn’t hear a reply but she did hear some music she didn’t recognize playing in a room with a closed door. Erin pushed the poor open. Hawkeye didn’t even have the grace to look surprised. 

“How’s dad?” he asked, voice full of false cheer. 

“He’s waiting for you to talk to him,” Erin said. 

“Oh he’s -- he’s waiting for me?” Hawkeye said. “Now, that one’s really rich.”

Erin considered, briefly, pouting. But if it didn’t work on the bus driver in Maine, it probably wasn’t going to work on Hawkeye. “Hawkeye,” she asked him directly, “I’m going to say something weird. Okay? And I want you to answer seriously. Okay?” 

“I’ll be seriously weird,” he said. “Or, wait, is it weirdly serious?” 

“There’s a shadow in my house,” she said. “The one in California. There’s something wrong under the floorboards. Or that’s what I thought. So I tore up the floorboards. And it was still there. It’s in the house,” she said. “Or at least that’s what I thought as a kid. But it’s not, is it?” 

Wordlessly, Hawkeye shook his head. 

“It’s in mom and dad, isn’t it? They’ve made it.”

“It’s not something you make,” Hawkeye said. “You call it a shadow?” 

Erin nodded. It made perfect sense what Hawkeye was saying. She thought she should be surprised or scared or something but instead she just felt clear hope. Finally, someone was going to tell her what the shadows wanted and how to hide from them. 

“I saw the shadows when my mom died. I was ten -- I thought I was crazy! I thought I was insane! I told my dad I was going insane and he told me not to be ridiculous and that the shadows were only there because we hadn’t given my mom a proper burial and her ancestors were punishing us. That made sense at the time. My mom died when I was ten, but she wasn’t the first person I knew who died.”

“Really?” 

“The day I was born, my grandfather died,” Hawkeye said. “We didn’t -- there were rituals, but we didn’t do them. It was a new time in a new world, my mom used to say. She used to say I was her miracle baby. Her gift. A life for a life. She’d make the trade again.” Hawkeye caught the look on Erin’s face. “Gift,” he agreed. “Off all the nuts and bananas things to say. Gift! Curse, more like. I think my dad agreed, you know. He’d always tell her to stop scaring me but she’d just reply that she wanted me to know.”

Hawkeye fell silent.

“To know?” Erin prompted. 

“To know how hard it is to choose life,” Hawkeye clarified. “My mom cried a lot. I didn’t understand until later, but a lot of her family had died before they were able to escape to America. My mom missed them a lot. She’d have these moods, these shadows in her eyes -- but she wasn’t the second person I knew who died. I had a sister,” Hawkeye said and this was new and surprising to Erin who knew that Hawkeye had a mom but did not know Hawkeye had a sister. “She was seven when she died.” 

“Was she very nice?” Erin asked, even though she knew it wasn’t what she was supposed to say. 

“She looked after me,” Hawkeye replied. “She used to take the letters mom would get from all over and pin them to a map in our room. She’d make me repeat the names and addresses back to her every night before she went to bed. She was sick, though. I didn’t understand it when she died. I didn’t know where she went. Dad told me the bastard death took her. I told him I wanted a few words with the man.” 

“With death?” 

“I carried that with me a long while,” Hawkeye told her. “My dad took down the map in our room when my mom died. The one with the pushpins from all over the world. Mom’s family. He took it down but it didn’t get rid of the shadows. They stayed up there. They were still there when I got back from Korea.” 

“Was it death?” 

“It was grief,” Hawkeye said. “I was alive but I let my life go unlived because I was terrified of that loss.” 

“Oh,” said Erin. “And now?” 

“Still there,” Hawkeye said. “I hope.” 

“Why? Don’t they scare you?” 

Hawkeye shook his head. “Sometimes, they’re like a friend,” he said. “I think in my old and wizening age I’ve come to finally learn to listen to the things my mother told me when I was younger.”

“What?” 

“That it’s a gift,” Hawkeye clarified. It did not give Erin any clarity. 

“What’s a gift?” 

“Everything,” he said. “Being alive and having a child to love or lose and having a home to keep or crush and having the sun in the morning and the moon at night and the shadows under your floor. The wonderful weight of life in its cruel totality.” 

“I think you were right the first time,” Erin said. “That’s a silly thing to say.” 

Hawkeye tilted his head. “Do you still see shadows here?” 

“No,” Erin allowed. “Only at home.” 

“So.” He grinned. “Move out.” 

“What?” 

“Your dad has already done it. Your mom’s a real estate agent. You’re heading off to college -- unless that’s changed?” 

“Berkeley,” Erin said. “But I don’t want to --” 

“If the shadows really are a curse,” Hawkeye said, “just leave them to rot. You can always come back to them if you change your mind.” 

“I won’t,” she said. 

“You’re very stubborn,” Hawkeye agreed. He was smiling at her, but his words were lined with glazing. “That’s not always a bad thing.” 

Erin sighed. “Are you going to call my dad?” she asked, changing the subject. 

“Maybe,” Hawkeye said. “Are you going to be able to sleep now?” 

Erin shrugged back at him. 

“Alright,” Hawkeye said. “Let’s make a deal. I go stand around in the kitchen and think about calling your father and you go sit around in my room and think about trying to go to sleep.” 

Erin rolled her eyes but walked over to the bed and got in. Hawkeye laughed at her and tried to kiss her on the forehead as she swatted him away. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


“You’ve got quite the daughter,” Hawkeye said in the receiver in the kitchen hours later. All the way across the country, BJ lurched out of sleep. “Do you know how much this little show of dramatics cost me? I mean, the sheer monetary value of leaving you hanging on this phone call alone!” 

“Hawk!” BJ exclaimed. “Oh, thank God -- I’ve been -- I mean --”

“Taking up with homosexual lovers?” 

“Only literally,” BJ said. 

“Well, if it’s only literally --”

“It’s only a little really,” BJ bantered back easily and Hawkeye laughed through the phone. 

“Beej, that was terrible. It wasn’t even a good kind of terrible,” Hawkeye said. 

“Well, it’s been a while since I’ve had a proper partner.”

Hawkeye’s throat spasmed. Peg, he reminded himself, and then BJ. “Peg,” he said. “Peg isn’t doing it for you?” 

“Peg’s my best friend in the whole wide world,” BJ said and Hawkeye’s heart plummeted. “But she’s not you, Hawkeye. She. I never was the kind of person she could be that for. I know that now.” Hawkeye’s hands were still but his legs felt like they might give out at any minute. 

“Hawkeye?” BJ said, through the phone. 

“I’m -- here,” Hawkeye said. 

“Help a guy out, Hawkeye. What are you thinking? Have I ruined everything?” 

Hawkeye realized, in the detached part of his brain that was still absorbing and understanding information, that BJ was nervous. “Darling,” he said, “it’s way too early in the evening to ruin anything.”

“Good,” came BJ’s voice, and then a pause. “I’m sorry about Erin. She takes after you.” 

Hawkeye barked out a laugh. “Beej,” he said. “Beej, what’s going on? I know we haven’t spoken much these last two or three months, but you’ve moved out? You’re living in sin now?” 

“I’m not living in sin,” BJ choked. “I -- didn’t know how to bring it up. Hawk, the war -- us. Everything that happened happened. I didn’t -- I couldn’t. You were happy.”

“Stupid,” Hawkeye said, “You think I could be happy when you were out there, unhappy, you moron?” 

“I didn’t think like that,” BJ said. “I guess I am a moron.” 

“Yeah,” Hawkeye said. “You know, when we said goodbye in Korea, I didn’t realize you were taking all the moron with you.”

“Someone had to,” BJ deadpanned. 

“And Margaret wasn’t going to,” Hawkeye agreed loudly. 

“How is she?” BJ asked, after a short hesitation. Hawkeye frowned into the phone. What the hell did that mean?

“Miserable and making all the rest of us a miserable,” Hawkeye said in response. 

BJ laughed warmly at that, like Hawkeye had wanted, which made his insides twist up violently. 

An awkward silence descended on them and Hawkeye watched as the shadows crept up around his kitchen, lengthening with sinking moonlight. He thought about little Erin Hunnicutt, all the way up from California. The sun would rise soon, maybe. 

“Beej,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me? Your best friend in the whole world and you didn’t tell me?” 

“It’s like I said, Hawk.” BJ’s voice through three hundred miles was tiny and slightly tinny. “You’re the best friend a guy could ask for.” 

“But?” 

“I’m not asking.”

“Yet,” Hawkeye said. “I always thought that sentence would end with a yet.”

“It does.”

“So, ask.”

“I’m not asking yet,” BJ said. 

“Alright,” Hawkeye relented, because Hawkeye always relented. He slouched upwards from his crouch and started to stomp around the kitchen. “Is it too late for coffee?” 

“I think it’s too early,” BJ corrected, laughing. 

“Nu uh,” Hawkeye tutted. “Coffee’s for early mornings and late nights and this is a bit of sugar-n-spice nice mix of both. Late night with Erin, early morning with her daddy.” Hawkeye can hear BJ’s abrupt intake of breath like the man is standing in front of him and huffing and puffing it into the frozen morning. 

“Come visit me?” BJ asked. 

“Nope,” Hawkeye said, cheerfully, “it’s your turn to visit me. Margaret would kill me if I didn’t get you up here and besides, I hear you're out of house and home right now. Divorcing.”

“I’ll get a new place,” BJ said. “Come stay with me in my new place.”

“I thought you weren’t asking,” Hawkeye said. 

“Asking, telling. What’s the difference?”

“You want me in California?” 

“I’d want you anywhere,” BJ said then and Hawkeye almost hung up the phone. “Hawkeye,” BJ started when there was no response for several long minutes. The worst silence they’d had. Hawkeye could barely stand to keep the silence but was completely incapable of breaking it. So when BJ did, something like cold relief washed over Hawkeye. “I’m not asking yet,” BJ said, “because you’re not ready. And it’s my fault. For waiting so long to ask. I know it’s my fault. But I’m trying to build a bridge. Come visit me,” he repeated. “Come stay in California with me.”

Hawkeye thought about the sun in BJ’s fading hair. “Mill Valley?” he asked. 

“I’m in San Francisco proper now,” BJ said. 

“BJ,” Hawkeye scoffed loudly. “That’s just it isn’t it. You’re in San Francisco on the couch of a would-be lover you met fifteen years ago that I’ve never heard of.” 

“I’ll get a place,” BJ said. “I’ll move out.”

“No.” 

“Is that --” 

“You haven’t asked yet,” Hawkeye said. 

BJ took a breath. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll ask.” 

Hawkeye pulled his head from the phone and pushed his face against the still-hot wall, humid from the day. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I’m asking you to make a home with me in San Francisco. I’m asking you to let me hold you at night. I’m asking --” 

“No,” Hawkeye said, “to San Francisco.” He heard BJ’s breath pulled in over his teeth and started to let his lips creep up around his teeth. “It your turn to visit,” he said. 

“I’m not visiting,” BJ said. 

“Good,” Hawkeye said. “I’ve been meaning to get another roommate. Margaret would’ve moved out years ago if she wasn’t afraid I’d wrap the rent around my neck and hang myself with it.” 

“So it’s a yes?” 

“It’s as much of a yes as an unsecured phone line will let me make,” Hawkeye spoke softly. He wondered if BJ could tell he was smiling. 

“You’re a bastard,” BJ said. He was smiling. 

“I learned from the best,” Hawkeye said. “When can I expect you?”

“When’s the next flight land?” BJ asked. 

Hawkeye laughed loudly and BJ joined him. They laughed and they talked for a long time. Outside, the dawn broke. And then -- “BJ.” Hawkeye did not like it when his voice was serious. He did not have a voice that lent itself well to serious moments and there’d been too many of them already today. 

“I know,” he said. “Arrangements. I’ll make them in the morning. Jose’ll be glad to see the back of me, though. Oh, and Hawkeye?” He said. “I’m going to come. I’m going to ask. Again and again. I’m sorry I’ve made you wait.” 

“Even Truman couldn’t make me do anything.” 

“Except go to war.” 

“Right,” Hawkeye agreed cheerfully. “Except that.” 

“Hawkeye?” Hawkeye lept into the air with an ungainly squawk. 

“Erin!” He said. “Erin,” he said, calming, clutching his hand limply over his heart. “Giving your uncle a scare?” 

“Every girl has the right to break her parent’s hearts,” she said. “I’m just making that literal.” 

Hawkeye’s laugh was warm, like the sunshine pouring in through the window, bathing Erin in his infectious joy. 

“It’s better?” she asked. 

“I understand why you came to visit me,” Hawkeye said. 

“Good,” BJ said on the phone. “Maybe you can explain that one to me then,” and both of them laughed. 

“Don’t be embarrassing,” Erin told her father, plucking the phone out of Hawkeye’s hands, deftly ignoring his shout of complaint. “I’m going to hang up on you now because if it were up to you and Hawkeye, it would take forever. And I need to call mom before I lose my nerve.” 

“I love --” Erin hung up before her father could finish speaking. 

“What?” she told Hawkeye, smiling a secret smile that was none of her parents and all of herself. “He’ll go on all night if you let him. He’s a sap.” 

“Yeah,” Hawkeye agreed, and his voice wasn’t quite hard yet. 

“Now, please go make me some coffee. I’m going to call my mother.” 

Hawkeye saluted. “Sir yes m’am!” 

“Just sir will do,” Erin said and smacked Hawkeye’s hand away from the phone line. “You can talk to him later.” 

Hawkeye saluted again, slower and much more formally and then retreated to make the coffee. 

Erin took a breath and turned to the phone. She’d wasted enough time sleeping and waffling in Hawkeye’s bedroom and now here she was and here she was going, going, gone. 

Her mom picked up on the first ring. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


“I’m not going to Berkeley,” Erin told the phone. 

“Honey!” her mother said back. “Are you okay?” 

Erin took a deep breath and tried again. “Hi mom,” she said. “I’m with Hawkeye. I’m not going to Berkeley just yet. I’m going to take some time off. I think I want to travel around the country. Visit dad’s old army buddies.” Erin hadn’t realized that was her plan until she started speaking, but once she started, the words kept spilling out of her. “Maybe even visit your folks or your college friends.” 

“I didn’t come from far,” Peggy said. 

“It’s not about that,” Erin replied. “I want to --” she stopped. “I need to --” she stopped again. 

“Whatever you need, honey, I can help. Just come home --” 

“No,” Erin said. “That’s what I need to not do. I need to find out who I am on my own and all that stupid stuff, okay? I don’t know how to say it without sounding like a total square, but mom, trust me.”

Erin waited, hands wrapped around a small plastic case of wires in the apartment of a man who was as much as a parent to her as either of the ones who birthed her. 

“Erin?” her mom asked. 

“Mom,” Erin said, desperate now. “I remember when you and dad were fighting and you told him you didn’t need anyone and he was so mad at you for that?”

“That was mean of me,” her mom said. 

“It was true,” Erin argued. “It wasn’t the wrong thing to do if it was the truth. Was it true?” 

“The truth isn’t always right, and it is often mean.” 

“Was it true?” 

“I don’t know,” her mom said. “I was angry, though, and I said it on accident because your father hurt me very badly.” 

“How do you figure out if it’s true?” Erin asked. 

Her mom seemed to think about that for a second. “You say it,” she said. “You try it. You listen to yourself.” 

Erin’s chest constricted in on itself and the world shrunk down to narrowed nail bitten fingers digging into plastic black loops of wiring attached to a wall. “That’s it, mom. That’s what I want.” 

“You want me to tell the truth?” 

But Erin was shaking her head before her mom even started speaking. “I want to listen and speak and try.” 

“And you can’t do that at Berkeley?” 

“Probably,” she said. “But I don’t know if I want to do it at Berkeley. What’s the point of living through all those things when you don’t even know if you want them? Or there? Or that way? Living should be a conscious choice, I think. I want it to be a conscious choice. I don’t want to know what’s next. I want to feel what’s now. And I want to spend time wanting other people and only needing myself.” Erin’s tongue was clumsy in her mouth and the words she spoke were even clumsier. She hunched in her shoulders and resigned herself to caving into her mom and going back home to Berkeley. 

But to her surprise, her mom started crying. 

“Mom?” Erin asked in alarm. 

“I want you to come to me,” her mom said. “I want to hug you so tightly that you start to think I’ll never let go and then I want to see you off on wherever you’re going next.” 

“You -- don’t care about Berkeley?” 

“I care about you. Baby, I love you. I don’t know how your father and I ever raised someone as beautiful and as brave as you. But can you come home? Can you come home to say goodbye before you go?” 

“I’ll be back,” Erin said. 

“I understand,” her mom said, struggling to bring her voice back under control. 

“No, mom,” Erin said. “I’ll come home and I’ll leave but it’s not -- forever. Maybe it won’t even be a year. Mom, don’t cry.” 

“I’m happy, Erin,” her mom said. “I’m so happy for you.” 

For the second time in two days, Erin cried. “The silences were so loud,” she said. “But you and dad never stopped trying to break them. I learned myself from you and dad first.” 

“Erin,” her mom said, but couldn’t think of anything else to say and neither could Erin. 

She went home. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


When she was seventeen, Erin ran away from home. She ran to New York by way of Maine. And then she came home. She hugged her mother and she hugged her father and then the three of them set off across the map going three different directions together all at once. 

When she was almost nineteen, Erin enrolled at Berkeley. She drove up to Medicino to visit her mom over the winter and flew to New York to visit her father’s over the summer. She kept her house cluttered and her lights on. 

When she was almost twenty, she sat under the shade of the eucalyptus tree that had invaded her backyard and started writing. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is definitely something new that I was trying so please -- let me know what you think / if it worked for you && thank you so much for reading <3


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